Church…

Recently, I have found myself questioning what church actually is? What does it look like? What do I expect from church? Are my expectations right? Are the selfish? I am in the right church, for the right reasons?! Oh dear…tooo many questions…

But for he next few weeks…months…years…I am prayerfully seeking my future in my church. I have struggled for a long time with the fact that I have gotten myself into a routine, into a complete rut! I go to church and play in the praise band. I dont feel engaged, I dont feel like I’m worshipping and I don’t really feel like i belong?! But then I find myself wondering, well…what is church? Words like community, friendship, worship, unity…all spring to mind…but do I find them in my church? I stand at the front playing the flute. I dont feel particularly filled by the Holy Spirit, and I feel even more saddened when I look down the congregation and see glum, unworshipful faces staring back at me!

What do I see church as…or maybe what do I want to see church as…?

I want to church to be full of happiness and sadness, full of brokenness and surrender. To see people being truly honest and open about how they are and where they’re at…i want freedom in church. I want to be free to raise my hands, not to be judged, to cry if i need to, to laugh if i need to! I want to have community! Relationships! I want God to be the focus! I want the Holy Spirit to tryuly move and be revealed! I want people to have a massive desire to worship from the bottom of their hearts…!

Why do people not feel the joy in singing songs of praise and worship to God?! How can the words not fill them with hope, with happiness, with humility and with the desire to raise their eyes, hearts and arms in complete submission to God because He is so good? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not standing judging people because the Spirit works through people in different ways…but I do find it very very hard to engage with God when I feel like its just a chore that I have been doin for the past 11 yrs! I dont get joy out of playing on a sunday morning!

So I have a dilemma…I have issues with what people think of me. I want so much to just give the band a break for a while and be part of’ ‘the church’. But I cant be bothered with the questions of why?! Because I’m scared of the answer!  I’m searching! Im searching for a reason to stay in my own church! I need to feel that I am giving God something more that just a tune on the flute every sunday! I want him to have my heart…in all its brokenness…but I just dont feel that when i’m playing on the band! I know its an act of service but…i dont feel that i am doing it with the right attitude anymore! and that breaks my heart even more…

aah…

1 week down…

So, thankfully things settled down a little as the week went on! The electricity went out on sunday night…but i was too tired and excited to really worry because graduation was the next day.

and what a day it was…

It was so good to be with everyone again and celebrate the last three years and that chapter of my life! One other thing that made it particularly memorable and special was the man who presented me with my degree…

Yes thats right…the very lovely, charming, James Nesbitt!

And so now that I’ve graduated, i have to say I’m finding it particularly difficult adjusting to life back home. It is hard going from being surrounded by friends and being free to come and go as I please,  to coming home and being more accountable to what I’m going and where I’m going. And what’s even more strange is living in this house on my own and feeling somewhat lonely. Yes, the space is nice, but I do miss my family a little and just having other people about the place. The animals just don’t quite cut it!

I think what I really need is to just be in a routine for a while. Even though I sorta hate routine, I need some sort of organisation and normality in my life. Roll on August! Back home and working for a few weeks then off for a few weeks! I dunno, I guess I’m just feelin a little lost at the minute! I don’t feel like I have any direction. I guess when I knew I had a job to go straight into, I didn’t think about how unsettled I’d actually feel when I left uni. I though tI was sorted! I am I guess – job-wise! But settled-ness and happiness wise…not quite yet!

Time…it’ll take time to adjust! And my prayer is that God knows. He has drawn out my future. It’s already sorted! I just need to seek…

I also enjoyed a wonderful catch up, several cups of coffee/hot chocolate, a bowl of soup and a movie with someone who has encouraged me and inspired me in more ways that she’ll know! I love talking to her because she is a fantastic listener and always has something to say about the dramas I find myself in! The most memorable thing that she has ever said to me is that ‘itll be ok’. No matter what happens, ‘it’ll be ok’ and its true. God is in control. He knows what’s going on and thats all I need to remember! Have faith in Him and … yep…’it’ll be ok’ and every time I think about this phrase, her voice echoes in my head, and it just makes it seem all the more real and comforting! It is great to have friends who genuinely care, no matter how often we may see each other! These friendships are very much a blessing in disguise!

Anyways, I’m really feeling like I’m getting the flu! So i’m off to bed! My body is tooo sore for words and my nose and face just feel completely bunged up! horrible!!

goodnight my friends…

greensleeves

x

God’s faithfulness

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about this summer! Part of me cannot believe how fast it has gone and yet another huge part of me can’t believe I’m not back to uni yet! It has been a summer of meeting new people and spending time reflecting on life and how God is working and changing me!

At the start of the summer I went on a discipleship team called Encounter in Greystones Co Wicklow. This is one of the most memorable and life changing teams and experiences I’ve ever been part of. I met so many people and was able to share experiences with them and let them into my life and talk and pray about challenges that I have faced and am going to face in the future. This taught me a lot about community. I know I’ve talked a lot about community recently but that is because I have learnt so much about the importance of it in my life, in anyone’s life! To have a community of people who you can open up to and share with is such a blessing, even if you don’t see them very often, knowing that they are just an email or phone call away is so special!

I was away on this team for a month and I truly believe that God put me there so that I could meet new people and be able to chat to them and learn so much more about how God wants to move me forward in my faith and how he challenges me in ways that I could never really imagine. Also I think I was in a place in my life where I just wasn’t feeling connected to anything, I was just floating along in life and somehow that needed to change and God obviously knew that and encounter did change me…not that I am a new person or anything, it just made me realise so much about how I’d been acting, how I’d not been taking my life seriously or literally, just sorta watching it go by! It was weird, for the first 2 weeks of encounter I’m pretty sure I cried nearly everyday! Sometimes happy tears, sometimes sad and painful tears, but all because God was breaking and softening my heart and I am SO thankful that he did! I think it’s an important thing to always pray about, that God would show us our hearts, like really open us up to ourselves so we know how to deal with things!

Anyway so I came home from that in the middle of July and was house sitting for 2 weeks. I was feeling pretty weird! I’d just come from an amazing month of community to find myself alone in a big house for 2 weeks! It had its pros and cons I guess! Yeah it was lonely and I missed everyone BUT it was a perfect opportunity for reflection and prayer and stillness! And having a free house meant plenty of time and space for little small reunions!

So I just sorta floated a long, always in the back of my mind thinking about how I needed a job…crap! But here we are…2 months later and I still don’t have one! But God is good and he’s gotta plan! I had applied for one job but didn’t get it! It sucks that after four years of having a job and having some money go into my bank every month it no longer happens! Aw well…just have to cut down my diet coke addiction! Which I think I’m managing to do quite well really…one 2x330mls today! AND I didnt have a single drop yesterday!! woop!!

Anyway…so not a lot else really happened all summer! A lot of babysitting and house sitting and dog sitting and all the rest of it! The odd little trip to portstewart and a LOT of catching up and hanging out with friends…drinking coffee and diet coke! If I had gotten a job straight away there would not have been as much time for these chats and catch ups and so I feel that God wanted me to be free to chat to people because He knows that’s what I needed…the job will come in time! I have faith that God will provide…yeah maybe I need to seek a little more…be more practical…I will someday!HA!

Now it’s time to get ready for uni…for final year! EEEK!!! Like…in the past few years God has taken me waaaay outta my comfort zone! Firstly with the whole going away to uni thing…I never in a million years thought I could but I did…not knowing a single person going to Magee when I applied…but through the summer I met people who are now my housemates and 2 of my best friends! God provides! Then a trip to Japan and even that was with people I knew…to a month away in Dublin where I only knew 2 people out of 35ish! But every single time God has been faithful and I have benefited from it…I haven’t always seen these benefits and good things at the time, but looking back I can see that God’s ways are perfect!

He never fails us.

He loves us too much to let us hurt for too long!

He reveals Himself in ways that sometimes we just have to seek!

I’m getting excited to see what He has in store for me next! Where else He’s going to take me, in or out of my comfort zone, I don’t care because I know He is faithful!

But for now…I just need to get rid of this horrible cold that is causing my face to be slightly puffy and extremely unattractive! Made worse by the constant flow of snot coming from my nose and my highly unattractive breathing technique I’ve got going n! BOKE!

I love blogging!

Good night!
x

oh and…

thank goodness for free minutes!!

Beulah Kim

I love how there are people in my life that I can phone up at crazy hours during the night when I can’t sleep just to have a chat with! Ever since lower 6th me and beulah have done this thing where when we cant sleep we just call eachother up…its usually me calling bee but she loves it! And four years later, we’re still doing it because I cannot sleep tonight and I am on the phone to her…talking crap but making myself sleepy haha!! everyone needs friends like these!

I also love the sound of the rain on my window…I may write this quite often because everytime I hear it I wanna tell someone how happy it makes me!